Your 4-Step Facebook Advertising Checklist

We recently partnered with Signify Solutions to breakdown the ever daunting Facebook ads. For the full post, please read here.

It’s no secret that your social media News Feed is in high demand. It’s more difficult than ever to have your posts seen, let alone engaged with. Within the past year, you’ve heard news of Facebook’s News Feed algorithm changing—a few times. The content coming from companies and brand pages is no longer the priority content on our feeds. Facebook’s goal is to connect people with messages they’ll authentically care about.

Due to the News Feed changes, there’s been a rush to figure out social advertising. You might be thinking that if people don’t see your message, you’ll just add some $$ to make it so, right? However, from boosting posts to creating a full social campaign, there are four things to consider before you spend a penny.

1. Listen to Facebook’s algorithm change. Does your campaign creative (images/video) speak to your target audience?
2. Have you created custom target audiences that contain people who are most likely to engage with your content and be moved to take action?
3. Can you measure success? Do you have tracking pixels in place to evaluate whether your campaign was a success or not?
4. What’s your goal for this ad? What type of ad needs to be created based on that goal—a boosted post or ad campaign created within ads manager?

CAMPAIGN CREATIVE

Let’s rewind to the note about Facebook’s new algorithm. How does it actually work? Well, Facebook uses a tool called, “Ranking,” and it’s broken down into four steps:

1.  Inventory of stories – what content is available from your friends and pages you follow
2. Signals – information available about the stories/content, such as how popular they are, what type of device you’re using, and your internet connection
3. Predictions – how likely you are to engage with that post
4. Relevancy Score – Each piece of content receives a relevancy score of how interested Facebook thinks you would be in that post/story.

Understanding how they rank content is helpful when you’re developing your campaign creative. Do your photos, videos, or articles align with what your audience is most likely interested in? How can you shape your organization’s content in a way to receive a high relevancy score? Think about it from the viewer or reader’s perspective, not just the perspective of your nonprofit or social enterprise.

Is your content social ready? Meaning, is up to the specs of the platform and ready to go? Video is hot right now, but the video length and size depends on the platform you’re posting to. For example, make sure to follow Facebook’s guidelines to maximize engagement. Also, 85 percent of videos on Facebook are watched without sound, so always include captions with videos that have audio. I recommend a company called Rev. They only charge $1/minute to create captions for your videos.

For more information on creating custom audiences, tracking pixels, and boosted posts vs ad campaigns, read the rest of this blog —-> HERE.

To dive further into the latest social media tools, tactics, and executing a social ad campaign for nonprofits, check out my online course, The Ultimate Social Media Toolkit for Nonprofits.

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